Tagged in: 2011

Enterprise leaders seek pragmatic, creative, and disruptive solutions that achieve both profitability and market differentiation. Cutting through the hype and buzz of the latest consumer tech innovations and disruptive technologies, Constellation Research expects business value to reemerge as the common operating principle that resonates among leading marketing, technology, operations, human resource, and finance executives. As a result, Constellation expects organizations to face three main challenges: (see Figure 1.):

Navigating disruptive technologies. Innovative leaders must quickly assess which disruptive technologies show promise for their organizations. The link back to business strategy will drive what to adopt, when to adopt, why to adopt, and how to adopt. Expect leading organizations to reinvest in research budgets and internal processes that inform, disseminate, and prepare their organizations for an increasing pace in technology adoption.

Designing next generation business models. Disruptive technologies on their own will not provide the market leading advantages required for success. Leaders must identify where these technologies can create differentiation through new business models, grow new profit pools via new experiences, and deliver market efficiencies that save money and time. Organizations will also have to learn how to fail fast, and move on to the next set of emerging ideas.

Funding innovation through legacy optimization. Leaders can expect budgets to remain from flat to incremental growth in 2011. As a result, much of the disruptive technology and next generation business models must be funded through optimizing existing investments. Leaders not only must reduce the cost of existing investments, but also, leverage existing infrastructure to achieve the greatest amount of business value.